"Where away, my old Carle?"
"On the larboard bow."
"What are they like?"
"Ilk ane is a three-masted ship. Ane has a poop lantern—the other is hull doon; but we are coming up wi' them hand owre hand."
"Look hard, shipmate, and mayhap ye may see another," said Barton; "Falconer, call the admiral. Yeomen of the sheets and braces, to your quarters; up with that fore-top-gallant-sail a bit, and fill the heads of that sprit-sail-yard. How does she steer, Wad?"
"Like a swan," replied the gunner; "a wee bairn micht keep her full wi' a silken twine."
The admiral now came on deck, and with a beating heart the gallant Barton sprang away aloft, to have a look at the vessels a-head, and praying as he went, that they might prove to be those of Captain Edmund Howard.
By this time the silver moon had waned, and the hills of Fife were melting into the darkened sea and cold, blue, starlit sky astern.